Woodward: Boise does care if you build an ugly building Downtown

Some of Boise's buildings make you wonder whether city officials have even a passing acquaintance with the concept of design review.

I've often wondered how we could have design review — a process in which experts evaluate building plans to guard against ugliness — and still have such ugly Downtown buildings.

Not that all of them are ugly, of course. There are some beauties among the clinkers, and which is which is almost as subjective as what constitutes good Mexican food. Some of the clinkers are so conspicuous, though, that you can't help wondering what went wrong and whether it will happen again.

Architect Andy Erstad, a longtime member and former chair of the Boise Design Review Committee, answered those questions at this month's Fettuccine Forum. It was standing-room-only, showing that there's no lack of interest in what our city looks like.

The good news: The future holds better things — if developers comply with the spirit of improved review procedures.

The past is another story. Erstad's presentation included photos of Boise from its beginnings, including one of Capitol Boulevard when it really was a grand processional. It was magnificent: a broad and imposing boulevard with the Statehouse at one end and the depot at the other and nothing between them to spoil the view.

The first building to do that — "the beginning of the end," as Erstad put it — was the telephone company building at Capitol and Bannock. It predated design review, which began in 1969.

Erstad's "poster children" in the case for having design review are the telephone company building, The Grove Hotel and the new Hampton Inn and Suites.

The Grove Hotel was built when Capital City Development Corp., Boise's urban renewal agency, had design-review authority over Downtown buildings. Its finished appearance motivated a group of concerned citizens to question the practice of having CCDC judge the aesthetic appeal of buildings it desperately wanted built; the responsibility was shifted to the city.

So what happened with the Hampton Inn, which was reviewed by the city but still managed to make Erstad's poster-child list?

"The developers requested modifications that our staff felt were acceptable, and some of them were pushed even farther," Erstad said. "They weren't radical conceptual departures, but in the image sense they were very different. There was an attitude that it's easier to ask for forgiveness after it's built than to do the right things along the way."

Neil Hosford did the right things as the architect for the Washington Mutual Building. It uses granite and other costly materials, is set back far enough on its upper floors not to ruin the view of the Statehouse and is arguably one of Downtown's most attractive high-rises.

Part of the problem in the past has been that the reviewers haven't had clear ideas of what they were reviewing. They were forced to use inadequate drawings that sometimes bore little resemblance to what was ultimately built. New regulations require three-dimensional models.

"That's already helped tremendously with a number of projects," Erstad said. "The models allow the team to look at a building in the round and see the concept and the massing."

That was the case with the proposed Capitol Terrace addition, the Aspen and a 23-story building planned on the current site of the Boise Rescue Mission. Some of them — there is an architecture god — will actually feature colors besides brown and beige. The Capitol Terrace addition will be shades of blue.

Like the new Banner Bank building, Erstad said, future Downtown buildings should reflect higher standards — if their developers build them as planned instead of cheapening them, and the city does an adequate job of making sure that happens.

In other words, we just might be getting past the "good-enough-for-Boise" syndrome.

Nowhere will that be more important than Boise Place — the 31-story structure planned for the hole at 8th and Main that had been earmarked for the ill-fated Boise Tower project. At 400 feet, the hotel/condominium project would not only be Idaho's tallest building but, in Erstad's words, "Boise's icon. It's what you'll see from Nampa and maybe even Mountain Home."

Interest in Downtown's architecture has reached the point that the CCDC now has an advisory group of distinguished architects. One, Ernest Lombard, said he "had to fight off an attack to write a scathing letter to the editor on how the Hampton Inn turned out, and there's fairly general agreement that The Grove Hotel is pretty grim. But things are getting better, and the public is showing it cares more.

"There's a lot of interest in Boise Place. It has some good ideas, but it has to come together with a more cohesive overall design element to make it the sort of icon we can all be proud of."

If the turnout at the Fettuccine Forum is an indication, the public will be watching closely.

Contact reporter Tim Woodward at twoodward@idahostatesman.com or 377-6409. Read his past columns at IdahoStatesman.com/Woodward.